Saltation

by Sharon Lee

  If it matters, the note went on, the enclosed was on my duty uniform until I wrapped it here; I have a new one that I was too indolent to attach without good cause, which cause I now have. Please wear it in good health, always. If this scrawl is unreadable it is because a Scout pilot stands waiting to receive it, her ship fueled and at the ready, that it might travel the first of those Jumps that separate us, that your wings should reach you swiftly.

  She smiled at the hyperbole of a Scout waiting a ship for a note to her—and then wondered if it was hyperbole.

  Below the note, wrapped in a second sheet of the same informal stationery, was a pair of slender silver and onyx wings, engraved feathers glistening.

  Theo held them, remembering. She'd seen them on his collar. Yes, she had. And they'd go on hers as soon as she could put them there.

  Nine

  History of Piloting

  Anlingdin Piloting Academy

  "Perhaps Trainee Waitley would like to relate the history of the ven'Tura Tables to the class."

  Theo started. She hadn't been dozing, exactly, though Instructor Johansen's voice did tend to put her to sleep, even when she wasn't working with a short night behind her. But—the ven'Tura Tables? She had done her reading, she thought, her stomach tightening in panic. She sent a quick glance at her screen, but if she'd read anything about these tables—whatever they were—she hadn't thought them worthy of even a note, much less a history.

  "Well, Waitley?" Johansen purred in that nasty-sweet voice that meant she was about to shave an inch off of somebody—and Theo was apparently today's chosen victim. "I'd think that someone who was sponsored into this academy by the Liaden Scouts would be fully conversant with the ven'Tura Tables."

  Theo took a deep breath to settle her stomach, and stood—in Johansen's class, you stood to give your answer, so everybody could get a good look at the kid who was too dumb to be up on her work.

  "I'm sorry, ma'am," she said, keeping her head up and meeting the teacher's eyes. After all, Kamele and Father had taught her that it was no shame to admit ignorance, though it wasn't going to be pleasant to be chewed out in front of the whole class for not having done her reading thoroughly.

  "I'm afraid I don't know the history of the ven'Tura Tables," she said, and added, before she could stop herself, "and I wasn't sponsored by the Scouts, ma'am. I was sponsored by a Scout."

  "By a Scout," Johansen repeated, sounding thoroughly disgusted. "Thank you for that correction, Trainee. Sit down." She spun around, glaring at the rest of the class.

  "Well? Who can tell the tale of the ven'Tura Tables? No one? Not one of you has read ahead?"

  She shook her head.

  "And you aspire to be pilots," she said witheringly. She clicked the autoboard control in her hand and the screen came alive behind her, thick with citations.

  Theo touched her keyboard and snatched the info down, scanning the windows as they opened.

  "The class will—at your leisure, of course!" Johansen was saying, "—review this material. Each of you will bring to our next meeting an analysis of the Tables, comparing Master Pilot ven'Tura's original effort with the Caylon Revisions. I will expect some insight into those factors which made revision necessary and the role of the Tables—in the original and the revised forms—in shaping piloting as it is now practiced. Go."

  The end-of-class chimes were simultaneous with that last contemptuous word, and there was a subdued clatter as the trainees gathered their things up and ran for their next classes.

  "At your leisure," Theo muttered, as she walked across the quad. She actually didn't have a class right now, though that didn't mean she was at leisure. Far from it. For her leisure time between classes, she had her choice of activities. She could practice board drills, work through her math tutorials, review the latest sample batch of cargo forms, or she could get started on Johansen's read-and-analyze.

  And, really, what she wanted to do more than anything else on this bright, blowy day was to sign out a Slipper and escape into the green and gold sky.

  Theo sighed. She didn't think she was a slacker, but she couldn't understand how school kept getting harder. By now, she ought to have the rhythm down, and done all the readings listed on the syllabi—she'd always had time to read ahead at school. Here at Anlingdin, she felt like she was running all the time, without any leisure, and instead of catching up, she was falling further behind!

  "Ball!" called an unfamiliar voice.

  There was a blur of not-quite random motion in the corner of her eye. Theo spun, feeling her pack shift on her back, snatched the bowli ball out of the air and pitched it at a girl in a pair of faded mechanic's coveralls.

  The girl jumped, grabbed the ball and let it spin her in midair, releasing it before she was back on the ground. It danced crazily to the right, then to the left—and then shot straight up, almost clipping the nose of a stocky boy with his hair in a dozen short pigtails.

  He made a one-handed recover and rolled the ball off his palm, on a trajectory for Theo.

  "Hey!" she protested, but the ball was on its way and there was nothing she could do except field the thing and get it moving to somebody else. Turning your back on a bowli ball was a good way to get beaned—or worse. It wasn't unusual for bones to be broken in an intense bowli ball engagement. Chaos! She'd come away with bruises from playing with Phobai and Win Ton and Cordrey—and she'd been paying attention!

  "Ball!" yelled the third player—a lanky, loose-jointed kid Theo recognized from her General Aviation class. She twisted, getting around the ball just in time, and sweating a little, too. She'd let her attention wander, and that was fatal.

  "Out!" The lanky player stepped back, hands down at his side. "Duty."

  "Find me later," the stocky boy called, while the girl in the coveralls dove for the ball.

  "I can't play!" Theo protested. "I've got too much work to do!"

  "A pox on work!" the girl answered, sliding into the grass to grab the ball before it touched the ground. It came out of her hands with a tipsy spin on it, and the boy hooted as he ran forward, one up and to the right.

  "Forfeit, Kara!" he yelled.

  "Frell if I will!" the girl yelled back. "That ball is in play, sir!"

  "Didn't touch!" Theo called, feeling like the boy was trying to get off easy—and suddenly there was the ball again, high over her head. She jumped, and almost lost her balance when the pack shifted on her back. Twisting, she released the ball, skinned the straps down, dropped the pack in the grass—and danced sideways, catching the ball on a dip and sending it whirling back.

  "That was fun!" Kara panted cheerfully to Theo. Their third had called duty, grounded the ball and taken it with him as he ran toward the landing field. "A shame we were playing with Vin's ball, eh? If I had one of my own we could have continued."

  "Not too much longer," Theo said, scraping wet hair back off of her face. "I've got class." She gave the other girl a grin. "It was fun, though. Thanks for calling me in."

  "No, that was Ristof," Kara said, naming the lanky boy. "He had been telling us that you were much better than you walked, and then here you came, stomping across the grass like a dirt-hugger, and the idea just bloomed." Kara pulled the clip out of her hair and shook her head, loosing a perfectly straight cascade of reddish-gold hair down past her shoulders.

  "Be careful of Ristof in the clutch of an idea," she said, stuffing the clip into one of the coverall's numerous pockets. "A warning, because you do not play like a dirt-hugger."

  Theo frowned, and looked around for her bag.

  "What do I play like?" she asked, spotting the abandoned item a surprising distance away. "If you don't mind saying."

  "Ah, have I insulted you?" Kara sounded more curious than contrite, walking with Theo toward the bag. "You play, Theo Waitley, like a pilot. More, you play like a pilot who has already flown the stars—I say this as one who has lived her whole life in a House full of such. Indeed . . ." She paused, blue eyes narrowed in her round, g
old-toned face.

  Theo bent and picked up her pack, shrugging into it.

  "Indeed?" she asked.

  "It is a thought, only, but it may serve you. I have heard that you have what my so-excellent Terran friends term 'attitude.' That you 'spoil' for want of a fight."

  "I've heard that, too," Theo said, remembering Chelly's advice that she lose her "attitude." She turned uphill, surprised but not displeased to find Kara walking with her.

  "Such judgments upon your good nature must be lowering. But what can you expect when you broadcast across two bands?"

  Theo turned her head to get a good look at the other girl's face, but she seemed serious. "I don't understand," she said.

  Kara nodded. "Yes, yes! It is apparent! When you are at rest, you walk—not like a dirt-hugger, but like a Terran. Your eye is bold, your stance is square, and you look—Theo Waitley, you look at everything!"

  "If I didn't look, I'd wind up walking into a tree," Theo pointed out.

  "Accompany me but a step further," Kara said excitedly. "When it comes to action—to bring a Slipper down on emergency landing, or to join into a sudden game of bowli ball—then, Theo Waitley, you act as a Liaden! You are quick, you are subtle, you grasp nuance—the difference is quite remarkable."

  Theo chewed her lip. The sound of an air breather taking off came to them on the wind. Somebody was having fun in the sky today.

  "My mother's Terran," Theo said eventually. "My father's Liaden."

  "That would explain much," Kara said, solemnly. "You speak to one who stands in a comparable situation. My family is Liaden, but most of our associates are Terran. I would advise you in your present state to give Liad itself wide berth."

  "Stuck-up?" asked Theo, amused by her new acquaintance's busyness.

  "One might say. Not long since, I visited my uncle at Chonselta City—allow me to say that I was compelled! Still, kin counts, and it was thought that my uncle might see me established in a piloting school upon Liad, where the politics are—somewhat less effervescent than we have here at home. It was no use, however; I am tainted from my contact with Terrans, and the distressful fact that my House is situated upon an outworld. It was worth my life to bow—and I have, I assure you, been taught the forms!"

  "So you came back and took your scholarship here."

  "My uncle could not buy me a passage quickly enough!" Kara laughed, shook her head—and laughed again. "There! You see? A properly brought up Liaden woman does not shake her head. Alas, the habit is altogether too easy to pick up and far too difficult to put down!"

  "Your family are all pilots?" Theo asked, wondering what it would have been like to grow up in a house full of Win Tons and Captain Chos.

  "Pilots for hire, the lot of us! Which is what I shall be in my turn, though perhaps," she said, suddenly sounding wistful, "I can convince my mother to allow me to 'prentice at Hugglelans repair yard when I am done here."

  "I used to like helping my father work on his cars," Theo said, slowly. "It was fun, but I think I'd rather be a pilot than a techneer."

  "Oh, I'll be a pilot, never fear it! But a mechanic who can also jockey ships—that is worth a premium fee! But stay—your father is a mechanic?"

  Theo laughed. "My father's a scholar. He teaches cultural genetics. His—I guess you'd say his hobby is cars. He races. There aren't that many techs who know the engines on Delgado, so he fixes his own." She hesitated, then added. "My father's considered a little odd."

  "What, because he does his own repairs?"

  "No-o. Because he lives outside the Wall in his own house, with a garden, surrounded by things that are—distractions to true scholarship!" She grinned, remembering what Father's answer had been to that bit of high-nosed criticism.

  "Pah! That has the feel of a quote! Of course, your father heeded this well-meaning advice to conform himself?"

  "Not exactly," Theo told her.

  Kara grinned. "Your father's classes are well attended, perhaps?"

  "Oh, there's a waiting list!" Theo said, remembering. "Students travel to Delgado just to take his courses."

  "I see. Thus, he has melant'i out his ears, and may safely do as he pleases."

  "It does seem to work out that way," Theo agreed.

  Kara sent her a sidelong glance. "Your father did not teach you to be a Liaden, did he?"

  "Why would he?" Theo asked reasonably. "Delgado's Terran."

  "True if you say so, Theo Waitley." Kara raised her hand. "I fear that our ways part here. Come find me the next time you want a game of bowli ball—Kara ven'Arith. I'm in Belgraid."

  "I'll do that," Theo said, and meant it.

  Ten

  Erkes Dormitory, Suite 302

  Anlingdin Piloting Academy

  Theo's work screen was three deep in reference chapters, each detailing some aspect of the ven'Tura Tables. Her hands were busy with needle and thread.

  The Tables—the original ven'Tura Tables—were just lists: numbered lists of numbers, lettered lists of numbers, cross-listed lists of numbers and dates, and more lists of numbers. They weren't nearly as interesting as their history, and for once Theo was glad she'd been more than a little attentive during some of her mother's informal get-togethers where the always-fluid topic of "the history of history" was under discussion. You could always count on someone saying that "you can't judge past actions by the standards of today; you have to look at things from the perspective of the times." "And," Father would add if he was there, "the culture."

  Still smarting under Johansen's scorn, she was determined to produce an analysis that did justice to the topic, and placed the Tables into their proper historical context. Culture didn't seem to matter, unless you thought of piloting as a culture, but the times . . . The original Tables had been developed during a time of trade expansion, coupled with a radical improvement in Jump drives. Those two conditions had created an urgent need for clarifying gravity effects and string constants as tradeships began to travel more than a few hundred light-years from home.

  Ships had begun to go missing—lost, or found far too late for the crew to be rescued, because no one had formalized the new conditions. One ship in a thousand was lost, routinely. And all people said—even pilots!—was that piloting was dangerous. Which it was. But what nobody looked at was why it was dangerous, and if the odds couldn't be leveled a little, in favor of pilots surviving and ships winning through.

  Nobody, that was, until Master Pilot ven'Tura had dared not only to log, but to share with all pilots—even Terrans, which was considered antisocial in his culture—the information that he and his clan had gathered over dozens of years.

  Eventually, Master ven'Tura had become the clearing house and editor for the monumental and necessary task, and his Tables became rote companion to thousands of pilots over generations.

  Then, over time, the loss of pilots and ships trended upward again. Most assumed it was because there were more ships and more pilots, less training, and . . . all kinds of things. It had taken someone with keen insight to see that there were tiny and fundamental flaws in the way the ven'Tura Tables were being applied, in the way they were being read by modern equipment . . .

  And so, the Tables had been revised. Recently, within the lifetime of pilots still flying. Again, they were making a difference. Had already made a difference. The number of ships lost was down again, in a statistically meaningful way. The person who had done the revision had been a Scholar Caylon, also a Liaden, though not, it seemed, a pilot.

  Theo flicked a footnote to access the next level of information.

  Well. It seemed that Scholar Caylon was Pilot-Scholar Caylon, though she had come to piloting late, and after her revised Tables had been adopted by pilotkind. She'd been a statistician of a sort, an expert in Sub-rational Mathematics. The text noted that her later work was . . . esoteric—notably a lengthy proof for pseudorandom tridimensional subspaces that, while illuminating her genuis, was of little practical use to working pilots.

  The
text also noted that her scholarly output had lessened after her affiliation with Clan Korval—

  Theo blinked; shook her head.

  "Spend your whole life thinking something's made-up and then it starts showing up everywhere," she muttered, and tapped the screen again, calling back the problem she'd set up to help her think.

  Trouble was, it wasn't particularly helping her think. She glared at the screen, looked down at the work in hand, and shook her head again.

  She pressed the process button, importing the familiar "standard cluster" that the class, indeed, the whole school seemed to depend on for training, into the second set of assumptions. How concrete were the numbers when applied to a tiny, sanitary, best-case situation?

  But there, the work in her hands was concrete, while space, which the numbers were trying to describe . . .

  A noise sounded in the hall, a thump—she shook her head. The kids—she felt like she could call them that even though some were several years older than her—the local kids had been all revved up over a sporting event; charging around the building cheering since early morning, though the game didn't start 'til afternoon. Even Asu had gone out to view the victory, leis woven in layers around her neck.

  The noise repeated, and resolved: someone was at her door. Theo sighed, locked the screen, and gathered her lace into one hand.

  The click came before she was on her feet, and a tired-looking Chelly smiled up at her as he lifted several large bags into the entry, where they thunked solidly on the floor.

  "Chelly, they let you come back!"

  She felt her face warm slightly—it sounded like she was pleased to see him, after all . . .